The Invention of Free Labor - (Studies in Legal History) by Robert J Steinfeld (Paperback)

About the Book

Invention of Free Labor: The Employment Relation in English and American Law and Culture, 1350-1870

Book Synopsis

Examining the emergence of the modern conception of free labor -- labor that could not be legally compelled, even though voluntarily agreed upon -- Steinfeld explains how English law dominated the early American colonies, making violation of al labor agreements punishable by imprisonment. By the eighteenth century, traditional legal restrictions no longer applied to many kinds of colonial workers, but it was not until the nineteenth century that indentured servitude came to be regarded as similar to slavery.

Review Quotes

"As at once a work of synthetic legal history and a thought-provoking series of arguments about the nature of legal change, it is a book that deserves to be read carefully by all early-modern social and legal historians."--American Journal of Legal History

"Thoughtful and quietly stimulating. . . . Both for its own particular ideas, and as an example of what labor law history is beginning to achieve, it is a book to be recommended."--Labor History